Higher Education Senses a Threat?

Last year, while teaching a graduate level artificial intelligence class at Stanford University, [Sebastian] Thrun lamented that his course could only reach 200 students in the suburbs of Palo Alto. So, he decided to offer his own free online class, with the same homework, quizzes and tests that he gives to Stanford students.

He announced the proposal with a single e-mail. Before he knew it, he had a flood of takers. "Usually I reach about 200 students and now I reach 160,000," said Thrun incredulously. "In my entire life of education I didn't have as much an impact on people as I had in these two months."

In fact, of all the students taking Thrun's class globally and at Stanford, the top 410 students were online. The 411th top performer was a Stanford student. "We just found over 400 people in the world who outperformed the top Stanford student," Thrun said.